Jeffry Tucker wrote an entertaining piece advocating for different ways to judge political candidates. I wholeheartedly agree that we need to find new ways of judging political candidates because rhetoric and philosophy are so lacking in the modern political sphere that using them as judging metrics is futile. Us Americans can’t even enjoy the witty banter people in Britain are fortunate enough to experience.
Because Ticker is nice he proposed things like spelling bees, Mario Kart competitions, beer pong, and hackathons. I, on the other hand, am a bit more ruthless. Here’s a question for everybody reading this, did any of you watch Thunderdome, The Running Man, or Death Race and think the bloody competitions they portrayed would make excellent alternatives to voting for selecting politicians? I did, which is why I propose bringing back trail by ordeal for judging politicians and trial by combat for choosing which ones get put into office.
Let’s face it, elections are pointless this day and age, especially for the presidential election. Look at all of the currently announced presidential candidates. They’re shit. Not one of them is fit to lead a lemming over a cliff (that’s not to say I wouldn’t like to see them try) let alone a nation. Is anybody excited about heading to the polls to cast a vote for Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, or Hillary Clinton? I’m sure somebody is but almost everybody I have talked to has aligned themselves with the candidate they think sucks slightly less than the others.
Now ask yourself, would you like to see each candidate be submitted to a trial of boiling water, where they must each reach into a kettle of boiling water to retrieve a stone? How about an ordeal of fire where each candidate is required to walk, say, 100 yards (because no other country uses the length of a football field as a standard unit of measurement) over hot coals? If you answered “No,” I know you’re either the candidates themselves or you’re lying. Screw the caucus system. Trail by ordeal would be the perfect way to select each party’s presidential nominee.
After the nominees have been selected we could move to trail by combat. Who wouldn’t want to see Ted Cruz or Donald Trump in a cage match against Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton? Maybe we could setup a Thunderdome and give supporters one final chance to support their preferred candidate by handing them weapons. We could even pay-per-view the event to help pay down the national deficit!
I honestly see no reason trials by ordeal and trials by combat wouldn’t work just as well as elections for choosing politicians. In fact it’s a far superior method since we wouldn’t subjected to losers constantly trying to run again (who isn’t sick of seeing Huckabee run). And third parties would stand a fair chance of winning. See? It’s a win-win.